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Event Series Event Series: Overview of PSA History

Overview of PSA History

October 1, 2018 @ 8:00 pm - 9:15 pm

Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (APP)
2018-19, 1st Block — Mondays, 8:00-9:15pm
Scot Gibson, MD


View Whole Syllabus

October 1, 2018 — Melanie Klein and Object Relations

[46 pages]

Erwin, E. (2002) “Kleinian Theory” from The Freud Encyclopedia: Theory, Therapy, and Culture. Routledge, New York and London. pp305-309.

Auchincloss, E. (2015) Ch11, “Object Relations Theory” in The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind. American Psychiatric Publishing. pp189-217.

These two reference articles should give you a good overview of the salient points of Kleinian (and others’) object relations theory. The article from The Freud Encyclopediagives an overview of Melanie Klein’s theory, while the Auchincloss goes into other theorists’ elaborations of object relations theories. (The Meltzer chapter below, though, should help you understand why it is important.)

Meltzer, D. (2009) Ch3, “The Klein-Bion Expansion of Freud’s Metapsychology” in Dream Life. Karnac. pp36-47.

Meltzer is a wonderful, passionate, and very direct writer, and in this short passage he walks the reader from Freud, through Klein, and into the ideas of Klein’s successor Wilfred Bion. As he does so, he make it clear why the Kleinian revolution was necessary, and the crucial change in emphasis that her and her successor’s ideas brought to psychoanalysis. This chapter was one of the most important texts that I read as I was becoming a psychoanalyst, and reading it gave me an “aha” moment about object relations that helped me understand that theory like nothing else ever did.

Optional Reading

Clarkin, J.F.; Yeomans, F.E.; and Kernberg, O. (1999) Excerpt from Ch1 “The Nature of Borderline Personality Organization” in Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality: Focusing on Object Relations, pp1-17

Otto Kernberg, who has been writing since the 1960s to the present day, is a great synthesizer. He has created a particular take on psychoanalytic theory which is an attempt to bridge ego psychology and object relations theories. He has been very influential especially in America, as the Psychoanalytic Diagnostic Manual (PDM), which was created in part to counter the reductionist methods and philosophy of the psychiatric DSM, is based largely on his theoretical system. His Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TPP) is a psychoanalytically-based, manualized therapy for borderline personality disorder which has been shown to be superior to other treatments (including dialectical behavior therapy) in several ways. I think of him as one of the last, and one of the most useful, of the classical “old-guard” psychoanalytic thinkers.


Details

Date:
October 1, 2018
Time:
8:00 pm - 9:15 pm
Series:
Event Category:

Organizer

SPSI
Phone
(206) 328-5315
Email
info@spsi.org
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Venue

SPSI
4020 E Madison St, #230
Seattle, WA 98112
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Phone
(206) 328-5315
View Venue Website